Limoncello Yellow (Franki Amato Mysteries) (5 page)

"
What do you want, Vince?"

"
Franki! Finally! Why haven't you returned any of my calls? I've missed you, babe."

"
Oh, I'm sure you haven't missed me that much. You seem to be perfectly capable of finding other women to keep you company when I'm not around."

"
Babe, listen. That…it was all a misunderstanding."

"
Oh,
really
? So, you're telling me that I didn't see the Munich Maniac's legs wrapped around your waist? Or, maybe I did, but she was just giving you private wrestling lessons? Is that it?"

"
Look, Franki, the guys dragged me to one of those nude oil wrestling joints—"

"
Spare me the sordid details, Vince!" I interrupted. "I don't care anymore."

He sighed.
"Okay, I made a mistake. I admit it. Haven't you ever made a mistake?"

"
Yeah. I have. The day I decided to trust a cheat like you. And while we're on the subject of mistakes, did you happen to notice that Petra looked a lot like a Peter?"

"
Damn it, Franki! Why are you being so harsh? Lots of couples deal with cheating, and they come through it stronger, babe."

I snorted a laugh.
"First of all, stop calling me 'babe.' And second, don't try to make it sound like cheating is a normal part of a relationship. I don't have to accept womanizing, and I'm not going to."

"
Yeah, because you're so damned perfect, aren't you? It's time to grow up and deal with reality instead of running away from your problems to New Orleans like a child."

"
Wait. How the hell did you know I left Austin? Have you been spying on me or something?"

"
Of course not! When you wouldn't answer my calls I got worried, so I called
nonna
Carmela. She told me you'd moved."

I
'm sure she also told you to remind me that I wasn't getting any younger and that zitelle couldn't be choosers
, I thought. "Vince, please leave my family out of this. This is between you and me—at least it
was
. There's no you and me anymore. Not now, not ever."

"
So, you're going to throw away everything we had over a few indiscretions?"

"
We're not talking about
little
indiscretions. They're
huge
betrayals. And yes, I most certainly am," I said, immensely proud of myself for holding my ground. I had a bad history of looking the other way where men were concerned. But not this time.

"
Okay. If that's what you want, you've got it. You won't hear from me again. But let me make something real clear: If you're waiting for Prince Charming or for a knight in shining armor, he ain't gonna come. Especially not at your age. So you'd best think about that long and hard,
principessa
, or you're gonna end up old and alone."

Before I could respond, Vince hung up. I lay there in bed with the phone frozen to my ear. Not even a minute before I
'd been so proud of myself, thinking that I'd come a long way from the insecure woman who would forgive a man practically anything. Then in ten seconds flat Vince had reduced me to a stubborn, old-fashioned
zitella
with one foot in the grave—make that the cemetery across the street. And suddenly, all of my insecurities came rushing back.

I tossed and turned for the rest of the night thinking about that phone call. I certainly didn
't think I was waiting for a fairy-tale guy. I mean, I'd dated Vince, right? But the hard truth was that every relationship I'd ever been in had ended in disaster. And after spending
roughly
half my life dating unsuccessfully, it was sure starting to look like I might have some sort of problem. The question was, did I come to New Orleans to solve my problem or run away from it?

At 8:30 the next morning, I was feeling both excited and anxious as I got ready to leave for my first day on the job. Most of all, I couldn
't wait to see my new office. Before establishing Private Chicks, Inc. two years ago, Veronica had settled a personal injury case fresh out of Tulane Law School that netted her a cool one point five million after taxes. Calling that payout her "ticket out of law," she had paid off her student loans, maxed out her 401K, bought the Audi, and put a huge down payment on an old office building at 1200 Decatur Street. For me, the thought of sitting at a desk in that building in the French Quarter next to my best friend—as opposed to sitting in a smelly squad car with Stan—was exhilarating. But I was also nervous because I wasn't sure how I was going to handle the freedom of working as a PI after the rigid schedule and structure of police work. Would I actually get any work done? Or would I just sit at the nearby Cafè du Monde drinking chicory coffee and stuffing my face full of beignets?

As I fantasized about becoming thin enough from all of my investigative legwork to eat a half-dozen or so of the yummy little pastries—with extra powdered sugar—on a daily basis, I was rudely interrupted by a knock at my door.

"Ready?" Veronica sauntered into my apartment. She was wearing a pink and black Chanel suit with a vintage black Chanel handbag. "Today's a big day for us. I just got a call from a new client. He's going to meet us at four o'clock."

"
Who is he?"
              "A financial advisor named Ryan Hunter. He's the primary suspect in the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Jessica Evans. She was found strangled to death at the LaMarca store she managed on Canal Street. The poor woman was only twenty-six."

"
There's a LaMarca here? I love that store." I thought back to a trip to Italy I'd taken several years before and the fabulous black leather handbag I'd splurged on at the original LaMarca on Rome's chic Via Condotti. "You know, I think I might have heard something about that on the radio when I was coming into town."

"
Yeah, it's been all over the local media for weeks. Come on. I'll tell you about it on the way to the office."

After assuring Napoleon that I would be back soon, I locked my apartment door and then got into Veronica
's waiting white Audi convertible.

"
So, here's what I know." Veronica started the engine of her car and then backed out of the driveway. "Keep in mind that I haven't seen the police report yet. But from what Ryan told me, and from what I've heard on the news, a salesgirl found Jessica's body when she came to work on the morning of December 13th. She said the back door was unlocked, and Jessica was lying on the floor in the middle of some racks of scarves. Nothing had been taken from the store."

"
You said she was strangled, right?"

"
Yeah, with a scarf."

"
Was she killed that morning? Or the day before?"

Veronica took a left turn.
"Sometime the night before. Apparently, she'd stayed late after the store closed. The police didn't release the information about the murder weapon being a scarf, by the way. Someone leaked that to the press. Anyway, Franki, this is big. If we can help clear this guy or even solve the case, we're golden. Private Chicks, Inc. will be a household name in Nola."

"
That would be amazing," I said, trying to hide my concern. Solving a high-profile murder in The Big Easy could be a hard job to accomplish.

* * *

A half an hour later we arrived at the office, and my jaw practically dropped to the street. Veronica had neglected to mention that it was located in her
three-story
, brown brick building. She had also failed to mention that an Italian restaurant and bar called Nizza was occupying the first two stories of her building, which had freshly painted white doors and windows bordered with charming bright-green shutters and a fabulous second-floor balcony—the wrap-around-the-building kind that people threw bead necklaces off of during Mardi Gras. This was classic Veronica: Her mind was always so focused on work that she would forget to tell you about all of the pertinent details of her life, no matter how momentous these may be.

After I recovered from my initial shock, Veronica took me upstairs to our office space, which consisted of two separate apartments on the third floor. One was for our personal offices, and the other was for private meetings with clients. I spent the rest of the day organizing my office, which
was in what used to be one of two bedrooms, and learning how to use the case management software for private investigators that Veronica had given to me.

At a quarter till four, I heard a bell sound as someone entered the living room that served as our waiting area. Thinking that it might be Ryan Hunter, I walked out to greet him. I was met by a young man with a thin, angular face and lanky frame. He looked no more than sixteen or seventeen.
He's clearly not Ryan
, I thought,
that is, unless Jessica Evans was into jailbait
.

"
Franki, this is David Savoie," Veronica said, walking into the waiting room with her handbag and her laptop. "David, Franki Amato."

David extended a hand with long spindly fingers.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Amato."

"
Oh, call me Franki. Please," I said this last word with a wince—David had a powerful handshake for such a skinny kid.

"
Sure thing, Franki." He flashed an enthusiastic, toothy smile.

"
David is our computer Boy Friday," Veronica explained. "He can do anything from programming to research. We have him fifteen to twenty hours per week, depending on his school load."

"
Oh, you're in college?" I'd assumed he was barely in high school.

"
Yeah, I go to Tulane. But I can see how you'd be confused. People think I'm
much
older than I really am." David straightened up his posture a bit. "I'm nineteen, but I can pass for twenty-three easy."

"
Yes, I can see that," I lied. Veronica and I shared a smile at his boyish confidence.

David slid out of his backpack and then his jacket, both of which he tossed onto a nearby desk. He looked like a boy who had just grown two feet over the course of a summer
, and he was so thin that I had a sudden urge to feed him a pan of lasagna.

All of the sudden, he spotted the laptop on my desk and ran over to pick it up.
"
Dude
! That's
your
computer? Awwwesooome! Can I help you connect that to the printer, or anything?"

I watched anxiously as he turned my laptop over in his hands. I still owed the credit card company over two thousand dollars for that computer and would never be able to replace it. I snatched it from his grasp.
"Thanks, but I took care of that this morning. Right now, Veronica and I are just waiting on a client—"

Our conversation was cut short as a tall, muscular man in his mid-to-late thirties entered the office.
Speak of the devil
, I thought. And then I wondered if Ryan Hunter
was
the devil. I could sense a darkness about the guy, and it wasn't just because he was under police suspicion. His ice blue eyes and cruel mouth spoke volumes about his character.

"
Ryan Hunter?" Veronica asked.

"
Yes. Are you Veronica Maggio?"

"
I am, and this is my colleague, Franki Amato, and our IT consultant, David Savoie. Franki and I will be handling your case. Let's walk over to our conference room so we can talk in private."

"
Sure," Ryan replied, furrowing his thick brow.

I glanced at David before leaving the waiting room. His exuberant chatter of moments before had given way to an uneasy silence. Even he seemed disturbed by Ryan Hunter
's presence. I smiled reassuringly at David and then closed the office door behind me.

"
Can I get you anything, Ryan? Coffee, water, a soda?" Veronica asked as we entered the dark wood-paneled conference room.

I was suddenly reminded of the first time I
'd met Veronica—she had shown up uninvited to a beer bash at my off-campus apartment with a bottle of Pepsi, of all things.

Ryan settled into a
brown leather chair. "Do you have any bourbon?"

"
No, but we have Pepsi," Veronica responded, like it was the next best thing to bourbon.

Oh my God,
what
is
her
deal
with
Pepsi
? I wondered.

"
I'll just skip the drink then," Ryan said, visibly annoyed. And then he added, as though he'd done us a favor by coming, "I don't have much time."

"
Okay, then. Let's get started." Veronica took a seat and opened up her laptop, careful not to break one of her perfectly manicured pink nails. "We have some routine questions that we typically ask our clients. So if you'll just bear with us for a few minutes, we'd appreciate it."